Who’s laughing now?

Those who dismissed Rep. Ron Paul as a joke in the Republican presidential primary campaign aren’t laughing so hard these days.

The Texas libertarian’s rise in the polls and in fundraising proves that a small but passionate number of Americans can be drawn to an advocate of unorthodox proposals such as returning to the gold standard and abolishing the income tax, CIA and Federal Reserve.

Paul, 72, recently set a one-day, online GOP presidential fundraising record, and pulled slightly ahead of Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee in a New Hampshire poll, where he had 8 percent of the Republicans’ support. In Iowa, he tied John McCain for fifth place, with 4 percent each.

Paul remains a very long shot for the nomination. But as the only Republican candidate backing a prompt troop withdrawal from Iraq — and an airing of possible impeachment charges against Vice President Dick Cheney — he appeals to a mix of liberals and conservatives who feel alienated and deeply distrustful of the government.

“Where the extreme left and the extreme right meet, you’ll find Ron Paul,” said Merle Black, an Emory University political scientist and co-author of the book “Divided America.”

“He strikes a chord with some segments of the population,” especially with his quixotic, uncompromising style, Black said. “But there’s a pretty low ceiling in terms of his actual vote.”

Paul, who earned a medical degree from Duke University and embraces the nickname “Dr. No,” often casts the only House vote against proposals he sees as too meddlesome or unworthy of taxpayers’ money.

In recent months he was the only House member to oppose an expression of support for Northern Ireland’s new power-sharing government, a condemnation of “the persecution of labor rights advocates in Iran” and a statement citing the importance of “providing a voice” for relatives of Americans who have vanished.

He was one of two Republicans to vote against funding the Defense Department in 2008, and against urging the release of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Paul is Congress’ most prominent advocate of returning to the gold standard, which the country abandoned in the 1930s. In its purest form it would mean that all paper currency in circulation could be redeemed for gold.

Supporters say the gold standard would curb inflation and boost confidence in the economy. But others say it would trigger severe recessions because the Federal Reserve could no longer manage the money supply in times of economic weakness.

For that matter, Paul would eliminate the Fed altogether as an impediment to free markets.

Paul breezily talks of eliminating the personal income tax, saying it provides about 40 percent of federal revenues, which spending cuts could absorb. The government’s funding level would approximate that of 2000, he says, although government statistics put the figure closer to 1995.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Paul said he is inching up in the polls “because more people have heard the message.”

He said he was stunned when supporters raised $4.2 million for him on Nov. 5, mostly through the Internet. It broke Mitt Romney’s one-day fundraising record, $3.1 million, for Republican presidential candidates.

“Something is going on,” Paul said. “It’s all spontaneous,” he said, and reflects a hunger for smaller government, greater adherence to the Constitution and “a pro-American foreign policy.”

Paul said the United States should leave the United Nations. “I don’t like giving up our national sovereignty,” he said.

The government should gather intelligence, he said, but dismantle the CIA, which he accused of blunders and abuses of power.

Democratic-drafted charges that could lead to a House impeachment vote against Cheney, Paul said, deserve careful deliberations by congressional committees.

Presidential debate moderators typically pay scant attention to Paul and two other House members seen as fringe candidates. But he has triggered some crackling exchanges on the Iraq war, unusual for primary campaign debates in which most candidates hold similar views.

At a mid-May debate in South Carolina, Paul infuriated Rudy Giuliani and others by saying U.S. troops’ presence in Saudi Arabia contributed to al-Qaida’s decision to attack the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

“If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem,” Paul said. “They don’t come here to attack us because we’re rich and we’re free. They come and they attack us because we’re over there.”

Many Republicans condemned the remarks. But Paul’s supporters rhapsodize about his candor and integrity on Web sites and at “meet ups.”

“We didn’t really believe we could find an honest politician,” said Cecelia Poole of Elkton, Md., describing how she and her husband intensely researched Paul’s record. First drawn to Paul’s hardline stance against illegal immigration, Poole said she found herself agreeing with him on monetary policy, the war and other issues.

“He would turn this country around in the way that it needs to go,” said Poole, a semiretired mortgage broker. She and her husband now travel to several states, she said, “promoting him everywhere we go.”

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It seems that many posters here want a larger more intrusive government to guarantee that we can take the full force of tyranny as long as we are paid to do so. The government is our problem and always has been!

I remember being so horribly shocked when the films of the Prisons with all those bodies of Jews were discovered. How could a nation that produced Richard Wagner end up massacring millions of German citizens? It was the promise of their government to be the leaders of the world when the Jews were extinguished.

When any national leader promises world power to their citizens, it turns into a Nazi Germany. We have been lead into a desire to extinguish Islam and our emotions are running on “frenzy” not freedom.

Both parties are blaming each other and Islam for all our problems and this is ridiculous. We citzens got ourselves in debt by wanting all the goodies advertised on television and further involvement in the Middle East which guaranteed lower gas prices. Fiscal Conservativism was exchanged for the same emotional power that the German people felt at the thought of massacring their enemies.

Our federal government set us up for disaster. Many feel they made no effort to stop or warn on 9/11. The government is a combination of intense greed stopped off with religious extremism. America must lead the world and Jesus Christ must lead America.

We have one candidate who can see through this and sure, we may have to give up some of our handouts but I guarantee you that nobody will go hungry until we reach a fiscal equality.

I, like Warren, have my roots in the Libertarian Party that formed after the 1964 disaster election turning our government over to LBJ who put us in a terrible debt with his welfare handouts. Nobody bothered to look at the education of our highschool graduates and found them missing in training. LBJ gathered up all the unemployable and put them on welfare and changed the ethics of many Americans. Our government is not set up to pay our bills!

I’ve read much of Harry Browne’s writings to understand what freedom means and for some reason the American people are rejecting it for financial security. Capitalism is being called greed and to many of us, it is the last and best way to financial security.

All we have to do is educate the next generations in science, math, economics, history and open up the world to them to be what they desire. Keep the kids on welfare and handouts and we will end up living off the wealth of others. I’ve lost my memory who put this into my brain; it was either Harry Browne or Ayn Rand, but I learned never to take from anyone what they worked to earn and expect it to be given to others.

I’m reading that many are afraid of freedoms. You want your safety net and are willing to give up liberty to keep things going just as they are. You want a government to tell you how much you are paid, how much you can spend and how you must live by Christian laws. You like your place in the great unwashed, gum-chewing possibilities of a future. You have a vision where everyone lives by the same standards with limited education to keep them in place like sheep. Anyone who dares to step out of the mold is greedy and selfish. Can anyone see where this originates?

Has anyone here read the warnings of H.G. Wells, George Orwell and the many other brilliant writers who spent their lives seeing where failure originates?

I have a higher opinion of American humans than you. Outside of being dumbed down for so many years, we still have brilliance coming out of our universities and labs who will solve our problems of energy, clean water, and maybe even population control through birth control.

I grew up thinking individual freedoms were the core of American values. When I read Orwell, I thought “this can never happen in America!”

It is happening and the people are demanding it. Is the problem that our last 2 generations were raised on television? Something very sick is taking over our children and putting blinders on their brains.

If one really wants to see the real outcome of policies such as Pauls just go outside , turn south and go to Mexico . Their political and social policies are very similiar to his proposals . Don’t want to travel , then get a history book and check out Mckinlys policies , see if they don’t seem very familiar . Still not convinced , , I believe they also gave these ideas a shot in Peru with less than spectacular results . What I find really amazing is that these extreme , unleash the market and every man for himself ultra conservative ( yes , ultra conservative ) schemes haven’t been religated to the trash heap of history by now . But I guess that as long as there are misguided idealests who ignore historical realities that keep insisting ” it’ll work this time ” and their followers who are either historically challenged or simply refuse to study the ramifications of going this route we’re doomed to keep revisiting the ” trickle down theory ” over and over , kind of like a conservative groundhog day .

Although this may sound quaint, I suggest everyone and I mean everyone to aquire some physical gold. The best demonimation is to buy tenth ounces of gold. Tenths are available in a host of bullion coins be they American Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs, Chinese Pandas, Krugerrands etc. When gold hits several thousand per ounce as it will, as the dollar sinks into oblivion, then each tenth will be worth several hundred bucks of the now “shrunken dollar”.

Gold represents hard money and even a family with a pittance in savings should consider owning some because if the day comes when we witness Wiemar Republic, Argentinian, or Brazilian inflation as witnessed in the past century you’ll be glad you own something of value; i.e, gold. A good figure is 10-20 percent of your total net worth should be in gold bullion coins. Stay away from bars unless they are of the Credit Suisse variety and have a certifiable weight etc. Silver is iffy because there’s really no shortage of silver and is not a true precious metal. You can get ripped-off on silver bigtime.

If all the gold mined throughout the ages since 4000 BC could be placed in a cube it could be placed in a volume about 60 feet on a side. This will give you an idea of the scarcity and preciousness of the metal. Definitely not a metal of choice for the Federal Reserve/U.S. Treasury counterfeitters…:)) Platinum would fit in a cube less than 20 feet on a side…! Stick with gold though because it’s universally recognized as a store of wealth. Besides it looks “nice” too… 🙂 Diamonds as a store of wealth are a no-no. Purchase diamonds and you’ll find out soon why they are “forever”. You’ll pay high and sell abysmally low. You will have to own them forever or lose your butt on their sale… 😐

Carl: thank you, once again, for explaining the real problem and the short sightedness of those who think some individual who waves the Constitution in the air can be the nations savior.

I do not agree that the nation is beyond saving, however. But I doubt anyone is prepared to sacrifice what will be needed to save it. Certainly not the polititions. They know they could not be elected if they told the truth. But they will all lose their jobs anyway as the economy collapses into the major recession followed by another great depression that is coming soon.

The next administration would have to massively cut our expenses in order to head off the disaster. All of our military bases and involvement beyond our borders would have to end. All of our charitable contributions overseas would have to cease. That means not supporting the WHO or the UN or NATO or anything else. And all non-essential or pork programs within our borders would have to cease.

New programs would have to be created to reduce our expenses such as research to develop a new means of cheap energy. For all we know it already exists and is being withheld by the energy corps. Universal health care would have to be established to reduce the over-inflated cost of health care. Our borders would have to be closed and all illegals expelled. All trade deficits would have to be eliminated which would recreate livable employment for our own citizens. And taxes would have to be raised equally across the board so that the rich would be paying their fair share.

Government must be reduced to the bare essentials. The list goes on but those are the most obvious and immediate changes that must be made. America would have to tighten it’s belts and reduce their standard of wasteful living. That would make a big dent in the polution problem. And what the Ron Paul advocates will not like is that government will have to lead the way by mandating these changes.

I know were broke, and I know that really there isn’t much we can do for this country and yes it frustrates the hell out of me. The thing is if or when our country takes the dive and goes tits up I would rather have someone like Ron Paul in office instead of the crooks and liars we have and have had for the last, ohhhhh seventy years. The only other alternative is just to be resigned to the overthrow or collapse of this country and starting a new one. Which may finally be the only option. But, that would or could be bloody as hell with a lot of people starving to death, which may happen no matter what. It would be ironic if the first and the last president of this country were constitutionalists.
But let me be clear on this matter, I do not put my trust in man and I realize that sooner or later all of this world is going to collapse and we as a world will see a time of terror and death that will never be equaled or seen again, because when all else fails there is only one that we can put our trust in and I believe it has been foretold of such a time to come and which must come. So I guess we all will have to watch and wait.

I’ve heard that theory. Unfortunately the true debt is estimated at over 40 trillion dollars and we couldn’t print enough money to pay off that debt. You can not pay off debt by accruing more debt.
Another theory I have heard is that the US dollar gets driven totally into the ground and our economy collapses and we have to start over with a new currency which could mean starting a new country and which could cause the world market to collapse, or we go to a global cashless society. If the conspiracy guys got it right, if the US was dissolved and merged into a new North American Union and have and use a new currency called the Amero we would theoretically not be The USA anymore and would then no longer have a debt.
I guess the point is that there is a few supposed theoretical plans to get rid of the US debt, but they all involve with the poor starving to death, the middle and upper middle class becoming slave labor, and the ultra rich kicking back and having us serfs licking their boots. Maybe then though our labor force would finally be able to compete with the slave labor in china. We would all be getting paid 60 cents a day then.

Yarply, I understand your frustration, but we all have to wake up and realize that regardless of who gets in the Whitehouse at this point in U.S. history, it won’t make a tinkers damn difference about the outcome with such massive, oppressive debt hanging over this nation. This nation was sent on it’s downward path into financial hell with the creation the Federal Reserve in the early part of the 20th century along with the implementation of the national income tax.

The US is composed a nation of abjectly broke, dead-beat debtors. Every man, woman and child owes minimally $40,000 towards the disclosed public debt of 9.7 trillion, but it’s still far short of the additional 55 trillion of unfunded or underfunded committments for SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and government pensions. We’ve been “living large” and the price we’ll have to pay will be brutal to our collective assets, leading to total and absolute anarchy…

*****
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country… Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

Abraham Lincoln 1809 – 1865
*****

Lincoln only referenced the corporations, but didn’t envision the creation of an awesome debt-money monster; ie, the privately owned Federal Reserve which is ultimately responsible for this nations destruction.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I am a member of the board of the Arizona Libertarian Party and I have run for office four times.)

Some responses above described Libertarians as “far right”. Nonesuch. The political spectrum is not one-dimensional, left-right. Political space is at least two-dimensional. There is another axis; that is, authoritarian (think South) and libertarian (think North). Those on the South side of the right-left line believe in government solutions. Those on the North side believe that people are capable of finding their own solutions. If you want to find out where you fit in this spectrum try the World’s Smallest Political Quiz at theAdvocates.

Let’s boil it down to one question. We’ll first presume that YOU think you are capable of making your own decisions in the best interests of yourself and your community without the government having to tell you what you have to do. Now ask yourself, “Is my neighbor Joe capable of making making his own decisions in the best interests of himself and our community without the government telling him what to do?” If you answer “yes” you just might have some Libertarian in you. If you answer “no”, vote for a Democrat or Republican, not a Libertarian.

Libertarians believe in the “golden rule.” It isn’t always easy. If you want your freedom of choice, you have to be able to grant the same freedom to others.

Libertarians believe in limited government. Not “no government”. Limited government. The government should do the things that are specified in the Constitution. It should leave to the people all the rest. Specifically the government should NOT engage in publicly funded government mandated social engineering. That’s a recipe for disaster. Democracy becomes Mob Rule. Vis Adolph Hitler.

Libertarians believe in the freedoms offered by the Democrats and Republicans and reject the authoritarian elements. Libertarians espouse the personal freedoms loved by Democrats as well as the financial freedoms loved by Republicans. Libertarians reject the social engineering that the Republican Christian Evangelicals and the Democrat Socialists try to enforce through government.

Before calling Libertarians “nut cases” you might first study and understand what it’s all about. Then make up your own mind. Libertarians let you do that.

I appreciate that my words have been a bit political, but I hope it’s been in an educational vein.

Thanks Kent Shaw for your feedback. Also a broken, materially speaking, starving mass of people are much easier to control and allow the government to implement draconian changes in their currency and property rights, along with the further curtailment of freedoms in general.

Bye-bye dollar, here comes the saving NWO engineered currency; ie., the Amero…! In other words this quite obvious, engineered destruction of the value of the USD could very well be part of a plan to break us all, both young and old to a very “manageable” state of affairs in order to implement their North American Union plan…!

He will run into stiff opposition for instituting massive, summary changes to our currently devolved system of government.

He will end up a single term president, operating in isolation with total and absolute resistance on the part of his party and the dems.

If by some fluke he should be elected, incumbent republican and democratic party members will obstruct any and all of his efforts to make changes to the system.

Were broke.

We need change, but I can assure people that Ron Paul is not the answer to our national problems and will be able to deliver only minimally concerning his campaign promises.

Ok, Ok, So,,,, let me guess,, we should not vote? We should not vote for Ron?
Let me guess we should do nothing?
No this is the right answer,,, we should vote for Hillary. Yep thats it, vote for her or some one else. Any one else but Ron. I get it.

Personally I feel that everything Pablo had to say concerning Dr. Paul is spot-on. I’m very familiar with Doctor Paul and his promises to change things are basically undeliverable except for the possibility of ending our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan due to the fact of his unique power as “Commander in Chief” of the armed forces will allow him to do so. Of course this alone would represent a huge savings of outlays relative to the taxpayer, but the damage has already been done; ie., the U.S. being an additional four trillion in debt since Bush took office.

Presidents don’t act in isolation though and unless there’s a massive dump of currently entrenched “republicrats” in both houses November 2008, he will run into stiff opposition for instituting massive, summary changes to our currently devolved system of government.

He will end up a single term president, operating in isolation with total and absolute resistance on the part of his party and the dems. If by some fluke he should be elected, incumbent republican and democratic party members will obstruct any and all of his efforts to make changes to the system. Our system of “broken government” has devolved over many presidencies since WWII.

People have to get it in their thick, number-challenged heads that “we the people” are flat, dead broke, courtesy of the ever money voracious MIC and the Federal Reserve sponsored debt-based “funny money” scam that exists between the Fed and the U.S. Treasury.

A trillion dollars is one thousand billion dollars and each billion is a thousand million. We were broke when our debt was at one trillion, truly a mind-boggling amount of “borrowed” money and now at 9.7 with 12 trillion projected by 2012 as our debt load, we have to forget about any bright future for this once great nation. This doesn’t include 55 trillion dollars of either under-funded or unfunded programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and government pension programs.

We’re finished as a nation and the Chinese along with the Japanese will be pulling the plug on our once vaunted currency over the next several years. The U.S. dollar is headed to be on par or less than the Mexican or Phillippine peso. Even the Canadian “looney” is worth more than the U.S. dollar and this change took place within six weeks. The Chinese central bank said that they are going to dump U.S. dollars and no longer believe our currency should be the worlds reserve currency. Soon Saudi Arabia and other arabic nations will no longer peg their currency to the U.S. dollar and will no doubt officially link theirs to the Euro.

So when greedy, thoughtless Americans pull up to the pump they best get used to five-eight dollar plus per gallon fuel. Oil will be at $120 per barrel, but since the oil producers will only accept the Euro there will also be an 50 percent premium on the currency conversion which will also have to be passed on at the pump. The results is that the U.S. economy will die like a slug in the noonday sun. If you think that China wouldn’t do so then think again. They are already migrating their offshore dollar investments into the Yen and the Euro, both far stronger currencies than the U.S. dollar. All I can say is get ready down below because the U.S. is headed for a massive fall.

“We the People” are both literally and figuratively going to end up living in tarpaper shacks by the railroad tracks spearing rats with fire-hardened sticks to survive… 😐

Bernanke the Federal Reserve chief should be raising interest rates rather than lowering them. In order to prop-up he his Fed buddies on Wall Street, hopefully preventing a massive recession/depression is discourageing foreign investment in U.S. “debt”. So as Wall Street gets a shot of life saving lower rate adrenaline, the U.S. dollar sinks lower and lower allowing the government to pay off it’s debt in ever cheaper U.S. dollars!? Bernanke graduated “summa cum laude” from his doctoral level studies, but he operates the Fed like he’s the “village idiot”. Their scheme is doomed to fail. In a world based on fiat currencies, recessions re-establish value to the currency due to a cooling of markets; ie., deflation. So recessions are actually a good thing from time to time as long as they don’t slump into a long-term depression. Rates should be going up instead of down, but Fed-Wall Street cronyism is more important than the saving of a nation. Besides these guys are all globalists in both thought and deed, with the end result being that the U.S. will be simply a minor plantation in their greater global plantation. They could care less about the national havoc that they wreak through their irresponsible, greed-based, ill-thought debt money management.

We need change, but I can assure people that Ron Paul is not the answer to our national problems and will be able to deliver only minimally concerning his campaign promises.

And no Virginia, we aren’t going back to Paul’s vaunted gold standard either. There’s so much U.S. “funny-money” floating about in both domestic and world circulation that gold would have to be valued at $38,500 per ounce to back all this “debt-money”. Ludicrous and impractical to say the least.

I agree Paul is honest , straight forward and no doubt really believes in the law of the jungle nonsense he espouses . The problem he will have however is if he ever did manage to get the nomination will be the national spotlight . I have heard him interviewed several times . He does fine as long as the questioner is friendly , doesn’t push for detail and stays in his comfort zone . But when pushed , moved into other areas or questioned on the consequences of his proposals he starts to unravel . While he keeps his cool , his lais sez faire policy ideas come apart when challenged and he begins to take on the aire of someones crazy uncle , resolute but loopy . This was painfully obvious when he gave an interview to Stacy Taylor who was subbing for Randi Rhodes . He gave two interviews that day , one to Ed Schultz where he did fine , but was not pressed , then later one with Taylor . Stacy did what a good interviewer does and started digging . It didn’t take long before Paul was on the ropes . Let me use this analogy , if it had been a four round contest he would have probably survived with a few less teeth and a broken nose , any longer he would have been TKOed or on the canvas . Taylor said after the interview Pauls campaign manager called and was furious with Taylor for ” going after Paul ” , and said he would never give him another interview . One can only imagine what would happen if he is given close scrutiny by those that understand the serious flaws in his policy ideas .

Pablo, you are under the impression that there is just so much money in America. If one part of America makes great wealth, you feel they take it from others. You could not be more wrong. Watching wealth grow should be an incentive to all people living in poverty. Instead the poor go into a corner and grieve with jealosy. How ridiculous!

I do not have an engineering brain but I can recognize those who do and will put my dollars into their dreams. I do not have the education to conceive of anything new and different (I spent 30 years raising my children) but I can recognize those marvellous brains who can develop the good things we all use daily.

I not only work to support new products but have been a member of many charities because I can fund-raise. We had a group in my area of Central California that joined together as a collaboration of organizations working for victims of deadly diseases and crippling handicaps. 150 organizations got together twice a year to organize our calendars so as not to put on two fundraisers on the same date. We shared our mailing lists and collected wheel chairs, walkers and other aids for our people. We did this rather than send in grant requests to the government where nothing was accomplished.

I’ve been a disaster trained member of the Red Cross for 25 years and a Hospice worker in two states. I socialize with people who can make a difference in the lives of others.

The thing that is broken at this time, is our federal government. It is a monster that is taking away our freedoms at a terrible cost to the tax payers. It has stolen the incentives of the lower classes who fear for their own futures.

Get off this crusade of yours to run down people you have no knowledge of and issuing repulsive labels on others you will never meet.

Making money is of little interest to me as I am comfortable with well educated and well adusted children and grandchildren. I instilled in them a work ethics that beats all the moaning and complaining that I hear from people like you. Nobody took money away from you, you simply didn’t prepare yourself to earn it. America has plenty of money for everyone but it won’t if half the citizens are too lazy to work for their own money. The wealthy will share with those in poverty but trying to take it away by force will do nothing for anyone.

The only candidate I see who shares my vision of a free America is Ron Paul. Unless he can get help from other fiscal conservatives in the congress, the people will win and our nation will fall just like the other socialist nations. I think he is worth a shot at the White House.

From a historical perspective, thoughs who are a little older (born in the 30s and 40s) will understand the crisis which this country is facing. Unless you have a clear understanding of what is lost can one seek to find and restore what is lost to its rightful place. Its easy for the ignorant to slyly make fun of older people and denigrate thoughs with more experience, because they themselves lack the maturity and the education to make a decision based on sound knowledge. You have to know you have lost something before you can look to find it again. Older people on the whole have a more certain moral compass than some, BUT NOT ALL of the young in this country, plus some of the young are so pampered and spoiled they can not make a sound decision. Ron has experience, fortitude and integrity. Some of the kids will bad mouth him and thoughs who wish him to succeed because they don’t know what thoughs qualities are and place no value on them if they do. They call good bad and bad good. Yet many of the younger generation are the ones who are forming the base of Ron’s campaign. So I guess the message of freedom is still resonating with in this country.

Give em hell Sandra,I too want the government out of my personal life.They need to enforce the law as it is written,not find ways to reinterpret it.Paul is the only voice in the wilderness that wants to rein in big brother and the corrupted atmosphere in D.C.Our bloody, greedy, subversive tentacles are now, so far reaching that the Romans,Brits,Ghengis,etc. pale in comparison ,and look at the fruits of their labors.We are hated and reviled on a par with the Nazis worldwide,really makes one proud to be American,NOT.To quote an old song,They can’t even run their own lives,I’ll be dammed if they’ll run mine.Paul hasn’t a chance in hell but people should at least recognize that the man and his message are calling for a change in the manner in which we conduct the nations business domestically and internationally.I don’t advocate a complete 180 but goddammit something has to be done about our policy coming out of D.C.and none of the other candidates can be nailed down on the specifics.That in itself should wake the public up enough to at least hear him out before pegging him a nut.

We live in a system where anybody can accumulate any amount of wealth they damn-well please; even accumulate 100s of times more than they could even dream of spending. Others, have no hope. I think there should be incentives and rewards for hard work, but there is only one pie, and if some greedy bastards get the right to take a disproportionate share, then they should, minimally, have to make sure those that are exploited and left behind have their basic needs met.

Sandra Price, you appear to live in the past and I feel you are callous to the plight of your fellow humans; I suspect you are in the upper-income bracket and never experienced poverty. We no longer have the huge resource base we did after WWII, and more and more of the decent jobs are being sent overseas. A hardworking person can no longer graduate from highschool and know they will get a decent job. A college degree which used to guarantee security no longer does; I know many college-educated people, who worked hard for their degrees, who are forced to work for menial salaries. I’m sure you think they are just lazy, or drug abusers but they are busting their asses and still live in fear of their future. Times have changed and you are either in denial or you just don’t care. A poor education system, the rich getting richer and the poor poorer, and the corporations paying lower and lower wages (so the CEOs can be filthy rich) is now the reality.

All I ever suggested is that basic needs should be met. I’ve never said that people can’t get rich or ahead, only that BASIC needs should be met. Our history has shown, that without government intervention, the rich will trample the poor, even trample their children (we used to have sweatshops until the government stepped in and made child labor laws). They will even drive species into extinction and make clean water unusable for generations; remember what it was like before 1980?

As for punishing and condemning people who didn’t study or abused drugs, screw that! Have you walked in their shoes?!? Guarantee you most are trapped in a cycle of poverty, where they live in poverty and neither their parents or the people around them are educated or value education. Put those people in a positive environment with good influences and encouragement and things would be much different for them. How dare you judge and condemn them! In addition, I am thoroughly convinced that, although there exist some lazy bad apples, 95+% of people, when offered a decent job with a decent wage will work, but flipping burgers or cleaning restrooms for minimum wage isn’t much of a motivator and that is all many will ever achieve, and all because of their upbringing, influences and environment.

I’d suggest if you detest welfare, work to have an economic system that rewards everybody for their hard work, not just those at the upper tiers (who often work less). I’d suggest not supporting a greedy system where the corporations just keep growing and growing and swallowing up the smaller guy, and then judging those who can only get minimum wage jobs (which isn’t enough on which to survive) as lazy.

I’m probably wasting my breath, but I think other bloggers should see your cruelty and denial exposed.